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There are many challenges to the Buddhist path. However, when we start to follow the path, sometimes we discover that some of these challenges are actually just illusions created by our own minds. One big challenge is the challenge of continuous, ethical behaviour. To behave ethically all the time is the human challenge. Or to put it another way, to get through life without hurting anything or anyone physically, emotionally or in any other way seems impossible. Often, to avoid…

The Intensifiers   Over the last two weekends, through mind watching we have been looking at the 5 constants, the mental objects that are always present in the mind. Contact, feeling, interpretation, will and attention. Then we looked at Karma and its relation to these 5 constants. This establishes the field for our practice, but this is not going to be enough to establish a deep and progressive meditation practise. For this, we need something else. So I’m going to…

Question. What do we think Karma is? The usual answer is that it is some sort of cosmic balance which influences our lives and always comes back to bite us. If you do bad stuff, then bad stuff happens. This view is closer to the Traditional Indian Vedic view of Karma which is also present in the Hindu religion. In Buddhism, it is a little different. Firstly, the word “Karma” is translated as action. The result of our actions is…

The Five Constants of the Mind Over previous weeks we have explored the nature of mind in a raw sense and looked at Mind watching. We can now take this a stage further. After the Buddha’s death, a text was prepared by his disciples. It captures the essence of his teaching on mind. This teaching can be found through the Pali cannon (the Buddhist bible) but this text pulls it together. It is called the Abhidharma. The text sought to…

Metta What is it that cause most people suffering in this modern world? I wouldn’t be able to quote firm statistics here. Only my perceptions, what I’ve seen and experienced. And it seems to be separation. Many of us isolate ourselves these days. Through fear, primarily and also confusion and delusion. This isolation is awful. It is almost as if we build our own cell and lock ourselves inside of it. E.M. Forster wrote  “only connect” in Howard’s End. Look…

Bach Flower Remedies at The Sangha House  

Or to put it another why – Why is that our best intentions fail us? We set out to learn something new and initially everything seems to be going well and then, oh, things go off track. Suddenly excuses come up that stop us doing the activity or class. We lose our way. Buddhism does give us a potential answer here. One of our members asked me for some advice in the Sangha House the other day. This related to…

Denise and I, the directors of The Sangha House, have been working in the Holistic Health Sector for more than 12 years. There is one common factor that always comes through, loud and clear. If you look at the statistics associated with our customers, you will see that, across the board, three quarters of our customers are women. Why is this? Well, I believe it is coupled with the complexity of how men feel about their place in society here…

Here at The Sangha House, Taunton, we have people through our doors from all walks of life. When we established our timetable, one of our aims was to provide a timetable built around people’s busy lives, to give them lots of flexibility. Therefore, we concentrated on places where people would (or should) take their breaks. i.e. start of day, lunch time and end of day. This has certainly helped a great many people, but we are seeing a clear trend…